Evangelicals are in a civil war in Iowa. If they could unite behind a candidate, they could defeat Mitt Romney and Ron Paul in the Iowa caucuses, but they can’t. Part of the problem is that three candidates are running for evangelical support but Iowa simply isn’t big enough for the three of them. They’re splitting the vote. Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Santorum are all making a play for the social conservatives they need to propel them onward. In 2008, sixty percent of the participants in the Iowa caucuses were evangelical.

Eight days ago Rick Santorum won the personal endorsements of two evangelical leaders—Bob Vander Plaats, CEO of the Family Leader, and Chuck Hurley, President of the Iowa Family Policy Center. The endorsements may have been just enough to push Santorum up in the polls—at Bachmann’s expense. Vander Plaats asked Bachmann to drop out and endorse one of the social conservatives.

The Bachmann team is simply imploding with the defection of a top aide to the Ron Paul camp.  She herself has said that it would take nothing less than a “miracle” to win. When you have to keep insisting that you aren’t dropping out—it may be time to drop out.  Look to Bachmann to exit stage left after Iowa. The question becomes who will she endorse.

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This year, with our new film The Gift Of Life in the forefront of my mind, I have been thinking about how thankful I am for life.  The film, hosted by the great advocate for life Governor Mike Huckabee, profiles some remarkable people with powerful pro-life stories and I am so grateful for their lives and the opportunity to share them with you.

The Gift Of Life features an incredible cast and I am thankful for each and every one of them.

I am thankful for pro-life leaders like Marjorie Dannenfelser, Kristan Hawkins, Carol Tobias, and Charmaine Yoest.  Groups like the Susan B. Anthony List, Student for Life of America, the National Right to Life Committee, and Americans United for Life are essential to educate, activate, and mobilize those of us on the side of life.

I am thankful that Carol Everett and Dr. Anthony Levatino, who were both responsible for the deaths of thousands of unborn babies, have seen the light and now use their incredible testimonies to change the minds of others.

I am thankful for Sandra Cano, the “Mary Doe” in Doe v. Bolton, for speaking out about the lies and deceptions of that Supreme Court decision and its companion case, Roe v. Wade.  Sandra tells us the truth about her pro-life beliefs and the way her case was manipulated.

I am thankful that Rebecca Kiessling and James Robison are both alive today after being conceived in rape, single parenthood, and adversity.  Their mothers were very close to choosing abortion but their lives were spared at the last moment.

I am thankful Chet McDoniel survived his delivery doctor’s attempt to let him die, by placing him in the corner of the room with minimal care.  Chet’s lack of arms and shortened legs have not held him back at all and he is living proof that no one has the right to judge the value of another’s life.

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Gov. Rick Perry stated at the outset of his presidential campaign that he is running for president based on his principles and leadership accomplishments, not his oratorical skills. Media focus on his debate missteps deliberately ignores Perry’s record and charisma.

Six months ago discussing Perry’s possible candidacy, a top conservative leader privately said, “Rick is a great leader. But he’s not a greater debater. And he knows it. The question would be whether he overcomes it.”

Technology regularly creates new challenges for presidents. Debating skill was a non-issue for many consequential presidents, but some are trying to make it an automatic disqualifier for the Texas governor.

America’s third president—Thomas Jefferson—was a lousy public speaker. He was literally a genius, and his singular eloquence as a writer is seen in his prose in the Declaration of Independence and other writings.

But Jefferson was no speaker, so much so that he only gave a couple speeches in his entire two-term presidency. He was so bad that he fulfilled his constitutional requirement to give an annual State of the Union by sending a written document to Congress.

The media would pan Jefferson’s radio and television performance today. Does America regret electing such a lackluster orator?

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We’ve begun a battle of enormous consequence to our entire nation here in the great state of Mississippi.  Abortion is on the November 8 ballot in Mississippi, in the form of an initiative to change the state constitution by defining “person” as any human from the moment of fertilization.  The amendment is based on statements made by the judges who voted in favor of abortion during the Roe v. Wade oral re-arguments.

Unlike some other states, it is very difficult to get a voter initiative on the ballot in Mississippi; this year, we have three initiatives that would amend our state constitution, a truly remarkable feat.  All three are key conservative issues in an overwhelmingly conservative state:  abortion, voter identification, and eminent domain abuse.Personally, I’m hoping for a triple play, and voting “YES!” on all three.  The issue that I am working on, however, is abortion.

When this battle is won in Mississippi, it doesn’t just set up a challenge to Roe v. Wade, it eviscerates that case and all of its unholy progeny.  It gives a method by which every state in the nation can extend the most basic civil rights to the most innocent and deserving members of the human race — our unborn children.

When is a person a “person”?

All humans deserve equal protection of the laws and the right to due process, but the law only extends these rights to every “person.”  Thanks to the outstanding work of Personhood Mississippi, we in Mississippi will have the chance to be the first state in the history of our union to define a “person” to include all unborn humans.  Initiative 26 will define the term person as follows:

SECTION 33.  Person defined.  As used in this Article III of the state constitution, “The term ‘person’ or ‘persons’ shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof.

If Mississippians vote Yes on Amendment 26, all human beings would be ensured equal rights in our state and protection under law, regardless of their size, location or developmental stage.  Calling abortion “murder” will no longer be merely a moral judgment, but an established legal determination.  In other words, abortion will be illegal.

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Republican Presidential contenders are melting like tourists on the Vegas Strip, without sunscreen, on a 117 degree day in July. Doesn’t anyone in the GOP actually want to run against the worst President in modern American history?

It can’t be Obama’s record that’s scaring Republicans. Obama is overseeing the worst economy since 1929…contributed heavily to the worst sovereign debt crisis in history…presiding over the worst collapse in real estate ever…helping to ensure the highest gas prices in history by refusing to allow oil drilling until recently…the list goes on and on. You’d think the Republican contenders would be licking their lips at running against that record? Instead they are falling by the wayside.

Let’s examine the carnage. This analyst and political pundit predicted Donald Trump’s political career was over three weeks ago when “The Donald” played casino pit boss and F-bombed his way through a Vegas speech. Have you ever heard of multiple F-bombs in a major political speech in by a Presidential contender? Unimaginable.

Forget the birth certificate controversy. Trump was still sitting high in the polls even after Obama released his birth certificate. But there was no escaping using multiple F-bombs on the biggest political stage. Not in a GOP filled with evangelical Christian voters, and parents who wash their children’s mouth out with soap for using that same word. Donald “F-bomb” Trump’s political career ended that day in Vegas.

What about Huckabee? A Presidential frontrunner, this former man of God couldn’t turn down fame and money. Huckabee proves even the Presidency isn’t as lucrative as a TV show on Fox News.

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I’m a Trump cheerleader. After 25 years as a lobbyist for Trump and Chairman of his 2000 Presidential Exploratory Committee, I like the man. I have studied mountains of polling conducted by the Trump casino interests studying the Trump brand for twenty years. I have studied the shocking new polls that show Trump vaulting to a lead over conventional politicians. A new PPP poll for Talking Points memo showed Trump leading the field.

Trump is a middle class phenomena. Middle aged, middle income, middle class voters are Trump’s core. Hispanic voters give him high favorable ratings as do African Americans and poor whites. The higher your level of education the more likely you are to loath Trump. If you are self-made you are 70% more likely to like Trump than if you have inherited money. Small businessmen like Trump, Wall Street Gekkos do not. The Apprentice has enhanced his standing because his short segments show him being cool, tough and decisive, things voters are looking for after the vacillation of Barrack Obama.

Trump appeals to the strivers. Trump lives as they would live if they were rich. Trump’s over the top lifestyle of the biggest and the best appeals to these voters. The Ivy League educated? Not so much. Old Money? Forget it. Trump appeals to the Perot and Buchanan voter suspicious of both parties. The Tea Party is a natural launching pad for Trump.

Now the Club for Growth is bashing Trump for positions he took ten years ago under far different circumstances. Trump favored a tax on the super-rich to kill the deficit. He was willing to pay himself. He is opposed to the idea today. Hard to imagine voters seeking consistency will switch to Mitt Romney who used to be a pro-abortion, pro gay marriage liberal.

Political operatives who come to work for Trump will soon realize he doesn’t need words put in his mouth and has a very clear sense of what he wants to say and do. Trump is soaring in the polls now because he is following his own populist instincts and expressing himself in street language the average person can understand.

It takes stature, money, energy and discipline to be elected President. Trump has the stature and the money, so far he has demonstrated the energy but whether he has the discipline to stay on his core themes and to parry the attacks on him without getting personal remains to be seen. Much of this furor is about the Trump brand. At last weekends Tea Party Tax rally in Boca Raton Trump asked his host if he should take off his trademark pastel tie for his speech. “No,” he was told, “you gotta look like you look on TV.”

Sometimes things are not always what they seem.

I spoke with Andrew Breitbart today about a rally planned on May 1, 2011in St. Louis. Andrew is headlining the event with Governor Mike Huckabee. Andrew shared these thoughts about the event, Van Jones, Color of Change and Mike Huckabee.

Good Cop Killer Supporter – Bad Cop Killer Supporter
Van Jones’ cynical ploy to win Mike Huckabee’s affection.

I don’t ascribe bad motives for Mike Huckabee playing footsie with Van Jones. I just want to draw attention to the fact that this radical left wing agitator has created an organization Color of Change with the sole purpose to isolate, marginalize and destroy those who have effectively exposed the Barack Obama administration’s radical agenda.

At the exact moment that Color of Change got me kicked off the Huffington Post front page he went straight to Mike Huckabee to pretend he’s a gentleman patriot.

This is the first incident in Jones’ 42 years that would suggest civility in this community organizer’s hard-core agitation repertoire. This “cop killer supporting” racist commie punk is playing Huckabee.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Roger Bate to discuss the need to criminalize the trade of counterfeit drugs in international law, then Pejman Yousefzadeh talks about Mike Huckabee.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Why and How to Make an International Crime of Medicine Counterfeiting
Establishing a Convention against Fake Drugs
Are Drugs Made in Emerging Markets Good Quality?
Study: Drugs from Emerging Markets Have High Failure Rates
Huckabee Questions Obama Birth Certificate
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Texas congressman Ron Paul has won the straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference, while former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has finished second.

Paul got 30 percent, while Romney got 23 percent of the votes of those attending the conference in Washington. Others were grouped far behind. Paul is a hero to libertarians and has a fiercely loyal following. Paul also won last year.

The straw poll was co-sponsored by CPAC and The Washington Times.

A total of 3742 people, about a third of total CPAC attendees, voted in the poll, a 64% increase over last year .

Comprehensive results here.

Ron Raul: 30%, Mitt Romney: 23%, Gary Johnson: 6%, Chris Christie: 6%, Newt Gingrich: 5%, Tim Pawlenty: 4%, Michele Bachmann: 4%, Mitch Daniels: 4%, Sarah Palin: 3%, Herman Cain: 2%, Mike Huckabee: 2%, Rick Santorum: 2%, John Thune: 2%, Jon Huntsman: 1%, Haley Barbour: 1% (more…)

Well, one thing is now clear. Barack Obama very much wants to be re-elected, and he is willing to do whatever it takes.

As I have already pointed out in anticipatory posts – first  here, then here – he could not hire William M. Daley as his new White House Chief of Staff without eating a substantial helping of crow. Among Democrats, no one was as critical in public of the course chosen by Obama, Nancy Pelois, and Harry Reid in 2009 as was Daley. The op-ed he published in The Washington Post on Chrismas Eve, 2009 – just a few hours after Harry Reid jammed through the Senate a bill burdened with provisions known as the Cornhusker Kickback, the Connecticut Compromise, the Louisiana Purchase, and the Florida Flim-Flam – predicted that, if the Democratic Party followed through on what it had already done, it would not only be routed at the midterm elections in November, 2010; it would lay the foundations for “electoral disaster . . . in many elections to come.” I doubt that President Obama will step forward and publicly admit fault. That, as far as I can tell, he does not have in him. But before Daley took the job, he must have heard the President whisper the familiar words that this son of one Chicago mayor and brother of another first learned as an altar boy: “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.”

In practice, this means that Daley will wield far more authority than was ever accorded to Rahm Emanuel. There are signs the he is already doing so. Reports indicate that Robert Gibbs’ departure is Daley’s doing and that Valerie Jarrett’s wings will be clipped. In these matters, Obama is utterly cold-blooded.  As William Ayers and the Reverend Jeremiah Wright learned not so long ago, when circumstances change, this would-be Messiah is not loath to dispense with those hitherto near and dear. One aide is quoted as describing him as “the most unsentimental man I’ve ever met.”

Daley’s arrival at the helm also means that Obama has decided to pivot and reposition himself as a budget-cutter and a friend to big business. The left within the Democratic Party is now in an uproar, which will help the President far more than it will hurt him. If he is to present himself as the Comeback Kid, he will have to ditch his party in much the same manner as Slick Willie from Arkansas. John Boehner and Mitch McConnell will have to be ready to do business with one hand – while they are investigating malfeasance on the part of the administration with the other. Politically, we are in for a battle royal.

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When, in The Federalist, Alexander Hamilton writes that “energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government,” he refrains from asserting that energy in the executive is the leading character in the definition of good government. He is right to deploy the indefinite, rather than the definite, article. Had he chosen the latter, Thomas Jefferson’s accusations would have been on the mark: our first Secretary of the Treasury really would have been a monarchist of sorts.

What Hamilton had in mind, however, when he insisted on the necessity that the new nation be endowed with an energetic executive is the fact that a government in which the laws are not vigorously executed and in which emergencies are not confronted and handled with decision and dispatch is hardly a government at all. He knew that wisdom, prudence, and moderation are also required for a government to be good, and he recognized as well that the ends and sphere proper to government are limited. He was no less committed to the principles of the Declaration of Independence than was the man who had drafted it.

Hamilton was also aware that that Julius Caesar and Oliver Cromwell had been energetic executives, and to their number we can now add such luminaries as Napoleon Bonaparte, Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Mao Tse-Tung, Fidel Castro, and Pol Pot. The executive temperament necessary for good government is not, alas, sufficient to guarantee its achievement.

If, as I argued in mid-June, it is now abundantly clear that Barack Obama lacks the temperament requisite in an executive, if, as I contended, he is inclined to shirk responsibility, shift the blame, dither, and punt, his administration is beyond question a government insufficient for our needs. This does not mean, however, that – merely by demonstrating energy, vigor, and dispatch in shouldering the responsibilities of executive office – Bobby Jindal of Lousiana, Chris Christie of New Jersey, Mitch Daniels of Indiana, Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, Jeb Bush of Florida, Haley Barbour of Mississippi, or any of the other potential presidential aspirants in the Republican Party who have been effective governors has demonstrated that he possesses all of the qualities called for in the grave crisis we now face.

All of the individuals I have named are impressive – as are, for example, Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee. The moment has not yet arrived, however, for a thorough assessment of the qualities and outlook of each. There will be plenty of time for sorting through the candidates after the midterm elections.

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By Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer

A massive fifteen-story mosque and Islamic Center going up in what was once the shadow of the World Trade Center claims to offer “the opposite statement to what happened on 9/11.” The Center organizers, the America Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA), have worked hard in the media to portray themselves as Islamic moderates working for peace on the exact spot where their belligerent coreligionists perpetrated murder and mayhem in the name of their religion. But the words and deeds of the leader of the effort, the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, suggests a more ominous reality: Abdul Rauf is a master of deceptive, Orwellian use of language, manifesting a deep contempt for non-Muslims and full accord with the supremacist goals of the 9/11 hijackers.

So anxious were they to secure the location at Ground Zero that a Muslim real estate company paid $4.85 million in cash for the building, with part coming from Abdul Rauf’s other Islamic group, the Cordoba Initiative. It is unnerving – the deliberate speed and anxiousness that the leader of the American Society for Muslim Advancement has demonstrated in working to open a mosque at the gaping wound of Ground Zero. He claims that it will heal that wound. But how will it do that? How will a mosque, the place where jihadis go for spiritual sustenance, at Ground Zero help stop jihad terrorism? Even the name of the initiative – Cordoba – speaks volumes. While Islamic Spain is held up today as a proto-multiculturalist paradise, in reality non-Muslims there suffered under the discrimination prescribed in Islamic law for dhimmis, non-believers who were subjugated as inferiors and denied equality of rights.

ASMA seems to have deliberately sought a connection to Ground Zero for their new mosque site. Muslims are already conducting daily prayers on the site, an old Burlington Coat Factory outlet where, according to Abdul Rauf, “a piece of the wreckage fell.”

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In the wake of last week’s vote for national health care, it is becoming clear that the Republicans have a great shot at success on Election Day this November.  The Republican establishment is wisely listening to conservatives who believe in limited government, but will Republican politicians keep their promises once back in power?

Today’s political landscape is reminiscent of 1994.  Conservatives were incensed at big government.  Threats of national health care legislation, gun bans, and tax increases woke up the movement.  Conservatives demanded limited government.  They made themselves heard and they put Republicans back in charge of Congress.  America had a conservative Congress for a few years, thanks to principled conservatives like Dick Armey and Newt Gingrich.

Unfortunately, some within the movement wanted to use the levers of power to achieve societal change.  As I detailed in an earlier column, a handful of aging social conservative leaders who still cling to the statism of the progressive movement of their youth wished to use the power of big government to change American society.  Rather than seeking to prevent big government from harming traditional values, they instead thought big government could promote values by limiting freedom.  Needless to say, this was the wrong direction for a party elected on the promise of limited government, and it would not be long before they were put out of power.

In the final years of GOP control, all we saw was big spending and even bigger government.

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Imam Zaid Shakir came to speak at my school, Claremont McKenna, on December 9^th to respond to the “tragedy of Ft. Hood.” Rather than respond to the massacre of American servicemen, Shakir spent the evening indicting the United States – saying “we were born in genocide.” The reason for the Ft. Hood Massacre, according to Shakir? Not jihad or Islamic fundamentalism, but the “pervasiveness of violence in our society” and because of Americans’ “easy access to guns.”

Zaid Shakir – Final from The Claremont Conservative on Vimeo.

For those wondering who Mr. Shakir is, he’s the go-to expert on Islamic issues for the mainstream media. The New York Times describes him as a “leading intellectual light,” while rap scholar, Cornel West says “he is one of the towering principle [sic] voices not only in contemporary Islam, but in American society,” according to this biography.   Most recently, he was described by John Esposito as one of the “500 Most Influential Muslims.”

After comparing the massacres at Ft. Hood by Major Nidal Hassan to the Columbine killers and Maurice Clemmons, of Mike Huckabee pardon fame, Shakir said that the violence we have seen was not a “Muslim problem,” but a problem for everyone. You never quite know when someone will “snap.” [The following is extracted from a transcript from audio I took of the public lecture at my college.] (more…)

President Obama told an audience at a Democratic Party fundraiser Wednesday night that Republicans often “do what they’re told,” but GOP voters don’t think their legislators listen enough to them.

Just 15% of Republicans who plan to vote in 2012 state primaries say the party’s representatives in Congress have done a good job of representing Republican values.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 73% think Republicans in Congress have lost touch with GOP voters from throughout the nation. Twelve percent (12%) are undecided.
These numbers are basically unchanged from a survey in late April.

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